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Thursday, February 27, 2014

The Devils worked throughout the last week of practice on trying to find ways to generate more goals when they resume play following the Olympic break tonight against the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Among the areas that were stressed were having the defenseman move the puck up quickly, having the wingers stretch out a little more to create more room when leaving the defensive zone, having the defensemen be more active in joining the rush and in getting involved in the offensive zone and having more of a shot mentality.

Controlling the puck in the offensive zone hasn’t been a problem. Getting shots on net has been, though. Although the Devils allow the fewest shots on goal in the league at just 25.4 per game, they also rank last in taking only 26.1 shots on goal per game.

“We made a couple adjustments getting out of our zone, maybe stretch the zones a little bit more,” Patrik Elias said. “You look at the teams and the majority of the teams play the same way, a very tight five-man unit and you’ve got to find a way to somehow give yourself a little extra room or time to create some chances. Hopefully, we’ll do that stretching our wingers a little bit higher in leaving the zone and getting the (defensemen) a little more involved in the offensive zone and getting more shots.

“And it’s not necessarily just throwing the puck on net, but getting quality chances. We have a lot of puck possession in the offensive zone, but not the outcome that we want to have from those possessions.”

Team defense has always been a priority for the Devils and that’s not going to change. Is it possible some of that will be sacrificed, though, by pushing the players to be more offensive-minded.

“It’s about how the players are going to read it,” said right wing Jaromir Jagr, who leads the Devils with 17 goals, 32 assists and 49 points. “You’re not just going to tell the players, ‘Let’s take a risk right now.’ It doesn’t work like that. You’ve got to have the sense when you’re on the ice when to take the risk or not and it’s up to the players. I think coach is going to give us a little more freedom to do it probably when it’s 50-50. I think for the defensemen jumping into the plays, they’re going to have a green light, but still you have to be smart about it.”

“There’s a fine line,” Elias said. “Sometimes you do it. It’s going to happen. You’ve got to know when to take our chances. Obviously, not give up clean 2-on-1s or 3-on-1s or 3-on-2s. We’re always a responsible team, forwards coming back helping our D and, at the same time, we have to have a little bit of a leeway to create something because one goal a game is not good enough, obviously.”

Elias has mentioned himself as one of those who can do more to boost the team’s offense. He ranks second on the team with 33 points in 44 games – he’s missed 15 total game due to illness and a couple of minor injuries -- and his 11 goals rank fourth on the team, but he feels there’s room for improvement there.

“For me, I feel like I’m not getting enough chances maybe, not enough shots,” Elias said. “A lot of it has to do with you can feel like you’re getting back in a rhythm and I and I had a couple of setbacks with minor things. It always affects it a little bit. At the same time, you’re rotating a lot of the lines always. But, when I do have those chances, I’ve got to be more of a threat. For some reason, I’ve got to be a little more selfish, start to shoot a little more and getting chances that way.”

Elias will skate tonight at center on a line with Adam Henrique as the left wing and Damien Brunner on the right side. That combination had some success earlier this season before Brunner sprained the MCL in his right knee on Dec. 20 against Anaheim and the hope seems to be that putting those three back together might get them going.

Elias had a stretch of four goals and two assist over four games before being held without a point in the last three games before the Olympic break. Henrique has no goals and just one assist in his last seven games. After notching a goal and two assists in his first game back from his knee injury, Brunner has no goals and one assist over the last eight games.

Although Henrique has played more center in his NHL career and Elias has played more left wing, Devils coach Pete DeBoer has Elias as the center and Henrique as the left wing on the line – and that combination worked better earlier this season than when Henrique was the center and Elias played left wing.

“I think Patrik Elias needs the puck in his hands,” DeBoer said. “I think he has the ability and has had the ability over the years to make other players better. When you look at just sheer assists, Adam Henrique is not historically an assist guy. I think he’s got – I don’t know what the number is (13), but it’s not a big number and it wasn’t a big number last year (just five in 42 games). Adam’s more of a straight-line player and a shooter and Patty has a history of being able to distribute and we need the puck in his hands more.

“He has to be if not our best player, (then) in our top two or three guys.”

Elias said all three players on the line need to have more of a shot mentality.

“We all can make plays. We all like to pass the puck,” he said. “You can’t compare all three of us to, for example, Rydes (Michael Ryder). Rydes gets it and he shoots it. I think that all three of us we know when to make a play and actually I’m trying to encourage all three of us to shoot more and more every chance we get.”

“I think we want to get more shots as a whole,” Henrique said. “That’s something we talked about: getting more pucks to the net. When we get a chance to shoot, shoot, not make that extra little pass. Our shot totals in the games aren’t the highest. So, it’s trying to get pucks to the net, shoot more, get chances, get rebounds, try to get some dirty goals.”

Henrique, 24, had 16 goals and 35 assists for 51 points in 74 games as an NHL rookie in 2011-12, playing mostly on a line with Ilya Kovalchuk and Zach Parise. He hasn’t been able to duplicate that kind of production the last two seasons without those two players.

DeBoer believes Henrique has more offense in him, but also cautioned against having unrealistic expectations for him.

“You have to be real careful,” DeBoer said. “I think Adam Henrique comes to the rink every day with a good attitude and a good team attitude. He plays well defensively. What’s a realistic expectation for him? Is it 80 points? Probably not where he’s at right now. I think he’s on pace for 20 goals, which is probably what he is. At the same time, we’re trying to squeeze a little bit more out of everybody, but you’ve got to be careful on placing unrealistic expectations on what guys are.

“Is there a little more there offensively? Absolutely. But, how much is the key and you’ve got to be careful not to push guys to get to places that aren’t realistic.”

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The Devils used the days after they resumed practice last week as a mini training camp and used a similar approach to the one they used coming out of last season’s lockout. They went 8-1-3 in their first 12 games last season and are hoping for a similar start coming out of the Olympic break.

“We really mirrored our camp from a year ago coming back from the lockout,” DeBoer said. “It’s the same kind of time frame. We had about five days to prepare for the start of the season and last year we got off to a great start. So, we really used the same formula for conditioning, for how we set up the practices and, hopefully, we get a similar result.”

The Devils had only four players play in the Olympics in Sochi, Russia – Elias, Jagr, Brunner and Marek Zidlicky – so tonight’s game will be the first in nearly three weeks for most of the team.

“It’s going to be different for everybody,” Jagr said. “There’s a lot of players that didn’t play for a long time. You have to make sure you have short shifts and play with structure. That’s always important in the first game back. We don’t have that much space for error, so we have to win those games to get in the playoffs.”

The Devils were a frustrated team heading into the break following a 3-0 loss in Washington on Feb. 8. The time off, which included 10 days without practicing for the non-Olympians, seems to have helped them psychologically, but now they need to start winning games when play resumes tonight.

“I think 10 more days – more than that actually with the practice time – I think is going to help everybody to get reset and start a new season,” goaltender Martin Brodeur said. “I think that’s the way we have to look at the next 23 games as a kind of a shortened season and try to get on top of our conference if we’re going to have a chance to get in the playoffs.

About

TOM GULITTI has covered the New Jersey Devils for The Record since 2002. Prior to that, he covered the New York Rangers for four years. Gulitti joined The Record in 1998 after six years at The North Jersey Herald News. He graduated from Binghamton University in 1991 with a Bachelor of Arts in Rhetoric-Literature.